Roadblock (1951 film)

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Roadblock

Directed by	Harold Daniels
Produced by	Lewis J. Rachmil
Written by	George Bricker Steve Fisher Richard H. Landau (story) Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes) (story)
Starring	Charles McGraw, Joan Dixon
Music by	Paul Sawtell
Cinematography	Nicholas Musuraca
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures Inc.
Release date(s)	September 17, 1951 (U.S. release)
Running time	73 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Roadblock is a 1951 black-and-white film noir starring Charles McGraw. The 73-minute crime thriller was shot on location in Los Angeles, California. The cinematography is by Nicholas Musuraca. The film was directed by Harold Daniels.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Insurance investigator Joe Peters falls for a bad girl, Diane (Joan Dixon). The couple meet in an airport and wind up sharing a hotel room in Kansas after their plane is forced to make an emergency landing. She wants Joe but loves the finer things in life, like furs and jewelry, more. Peters can't afford things like that on his small salary, so the normally honest Peters setup a heist in an attempt to finance a dream life with Diane. After the crime, an elaborate railway mail car robbery, things begin to go awry and love sick Peters who continues to try to cover up his actions.

[edit] Dialogue

The hard-edged clipped dialogue between the two lead actors is typical of film noir. The following is an example early in the film when Joe and Diane first get to know each other:

"What makes you the way you are?" Joe
"What makes anybody the way they are?" Diane
"You tell me." Joe
"Where they got started maybe. I had a lot of jobs - modeling, clerking, secretarial work. I tried hard but it was no go." Diane
"Does that make a chiseler out of you? Must have been something else." Joe
"Whenever I got a job there was always a man who wasn't interested in my working ability." Diane
"I understand that." Joe
"Really? Coming from you that's a compliment." Diane

[edit] Critical reaction

Hans J. Wollstein writing for All Movie Guide calls the film a "low-budget but highly engrossing film noir" while Dennis Schwartz on Ozus' World Movie reviews states "In the end everything was done in such a flat manner, that it was hard to care that straight-shooter McGraw lost his integrity and life for an icy broad who ironically would have loved him the way he was."